Tacos w/ McCormick’s Seasoning

After living in California for the past five years I have become a little spoiled with Mexican food…good Mexican food that is. None of this taco bell junk. Now living in Rhode Island I am beyond limited for gluten-free options not just in grocery stores but also in restaurants! Granted this is because we don’t live in Providence but still it can be frustrating some days, but a blessing because it makes me cook and bake at home more. Every once in a while I just don’t want to cook or bake I want to just go out and grab something (I would LOVE some Chinese food!!).

We found a “Mexican” place not far from us so we decided to try some tacos…how bad can tacos be, seriously?? The place is called Tito’s Cantina Mexican Grill, and this is what their website says “In the summer of 1989, Two Amigos with big dreams put their sombreros together to bring you the authentic taste of Old Mexico. From that, Tito’s was born!” Okay I know I’m not from Mexico and I’m not Mexican…not even a drop but these were the worst tasting tacos ever. The taco bell (Yes I know I just called it junk earlier) would have been better than these. I opted for the shredded beef tacos instead of the ground beef…I was trying to go for that “authentic Mexican” they were talking about. I’m surprised I got them down…even Bryan agreed with me, these tasted like beef stew. I am not joking, it was seriously like eating beef stew in a taco shell, ummm grossness in my mouth. Bryan’s ground beef tacos were out of this world compared to my shredded beef. I don’t think we’ll be back there. So to make up for that horrible mess of a lunch I decided that ground beef tacos at home are way better 🙂

The other day I spent about ten or fifteen minutes reading labels in the grocery store. Labels on vanilla extract, hot dogs and taco seasonings. I know I could make my own but that would require me to buy several different seasonings instead of just a small packet. After being a little frustrated both Bryan and I took out our phones and started searching that way we found out that McCormick’s had both gluten-free seasoning and vanilla extract. Actually this is what it says on their website

Do your products contain gluten?

None of our single ingredient spices and herbs contain gluten. In addition, all of our extracts, including Pure Vanilla, are gluten-free. Some of our products do contain gluten. When WHEAT is the source, it will always be called out within the ingredient statement, and listed in bold.

We do not maintain a list of gluten-free products, as our formulas change from time to time

After finding this information we re-read the back of the package and sure enough it was gluten-free! We also found some great crunch corn taco shells by Ortega that say gluten-free right on the front of the box! Sadly we couldn’t tell in the store or even now if their seasoning mix was gluten-free or not, so we decided to go with what we knew was safe to consume. We tried the Spicy Taco seasoning and loved it…jut the right amount of spice! The taco shells were awesome, they actually had some great flavor to them and held up well to the stuffed tacos!